


Day 040

by Josh_the_Bard



Series: A Year in Kirkwall [40]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22643626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josh_the_Bard/pseuds/Josh_the_Bard
Summary: Major Trigger warning for torture and bugs
Series: A Year in Kirkwall [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589257
Kudos: 1





	Day 040

**Author's Note:**

> Major Trigger warning for torture and bugs

“Scream for us templar.” The demon said smiling with too many teeth. The abominations and blood mages to it’s side cackled with sadistic glee. One of the mages Cullen knew by name, Sabrina. Just yesterday Cullen had found her hiding in a closet crying, her brother and mother had been soldiers at Ostagar and news of the army’s defeat had hit her hard. Technically he was supposed to report finding a mage hiding for any reason, but the girl had only wanted to mourn her family in peace. He had stood guard until she was ready to rejoin her fellows.

Now she was looking to the demon with awe and devotion and she looked at Cullen with… pity perhaps.

“Tell me Templar,” said the demon, “How much pain can you endure? Do you think you will last longer than your fellows? Will we break your body or your mind first?”

“Do your worst demon,” he shouted back. “I will not break! The Maker will shield my soul. Kill me and I ascend to his side.”

“I like your fire,” the demon said. “It makes it more satisfying when you finally break.”

“You won’t break him with torture,” Sabrina said. “He is strong. But he cares about others far too much for his own good.”

“Interesting,” said the demon. Then Cullen was surrounded by a barrier, nothing could get in or out.

Cullen was dreaming. He knew that, yet he could not wake up. Neither could he block out the horrors that were to come. All he could do was what he had done then: endure until he was released. 

First they brought a Chantry brother before him. The first time Cullen beat against the walls of the prison, tried to goad the demons into killing him, anything to stop the parade of horrors that was coming. By now he was he knew it was useless to try and change what had happened. All he could do was try, and fail, to not care.

They stripped the brother robes from his body and held him down. The demon ran a claw over every inch of his flesh, wondering aloud what parts would be the most delicious. Then it used its mouth, sharp fangs piercing his flesh and tongue lapping up the blood. The brother screamed until he was horse, pleaded and begged, sometimes for mercy, sometimes for a clean death. When that failed he wept, sobs becoming weaker until all he could do was stare blankly at nothing. The process lasted hours. 

When the brother had ceased reacting to the bites the demon, with a sudden burst of speed, slashed his belly open and ripped out his guts. Sabrina stepped in then, healing the man back to perfect health. He and Cullen were forced to watch as the demon devoured his innards. Then the demon slashed his belly open again pulling out his recently regrown organs and again Sabrina healed him. The process went on until Sabrina was drained of energy and could no longer work her magic. Only then was the brother allowed to die. 

They brought in Grecia next, a templar Cullen considered a mentor. Someone had once told Cullen that demons lacked imagination but here Cullen learned that was not alway true.

Starting with her feet, the demon held a flame to her body, just enough to burn away the skin. Cullen would never forget the sound of her screams, or the smell. When the demon had finished, the Grecia’s face was a melted mask of horror but the lidless eyes stared out, as aware and alive as they had ever been. Cullen has stupidly expected them to kill her, instead Sabrina summoned a swarm of biting insects. The templar lacked the strength to swat them away and they burrowed into her flesh until she became their hive. Two scorpions ate out her eyes making their home in the empty sockets. Cullen hopped the Maker would release her spirit but as the parade of victims was presented to Cullen, he would occasionally see her twitch with life. Days later, she was killed by a mage who needed her blood to power a spell. Cullen had thought her voice was destroyed but in her last moments, she let out one last scream of fear, anguish and rage. Trapped in his prison, Cullen joined his voice with hers. An impotent howle that carried him from sleep to wakefulness. 

He fell out of bed and scrambled to the desk where he kept his lyrium philter. The screams of the demon’s victims echoed in his head until he drowned them all in a wash of blue liquid. 

He had hoped that, as time went on, he would need less Lyrium to soothe his mind, but the opposite had happened. He was needing more and more. He had seen first hand what his increased intake would do to him. Poor Caroll was a living warning of the dangers of lyrium. But without the lyrium he would be a wreck useless to the Order, and at this point that was all that mattered to him. 

He looked at the carving of Andraste in his philter case. He cursed the Maker and his prophet for forcing him to endure what he had, for not letting him die with his brothers and sisters. 

A knock at the door snapped Cullen back to himself. With his hand reached to his sword and his mind went to that place of peace where it could nullify magical energy. He didn’t think anything was amiss, but that didn’t make him feel any safer. Knight Templar Hugh was at the door.

“Captain.” Hugh saluted and stood at attention. Cullen allowed himself to relax a little, not all the way. Not ever all the way.

“What is it?”

“The Knight Commander requests your presence to help perform the Right on a suspected blood mage…” the Templar trailed off expectantly.

“What is it?”

“I was there when she was captured. She had cast no spells and given no indication that she is even a mage, let alone a blood mage. All the evidence we have is the scars on her arm.”

At that moment Cullen had his answer. He was called on to endure things others could not imagine in their worst nightmares, so he could better protect the people of Thedas from the dangers of magic and demons. The idea of performing the Rite on an innocent might seem horrific to a new recruit. It’s very existence had once been horrifying to Cullen. But he had seen far worse horrors, and he knew where hesitation would lead. 

“Thank you for voicing your concerns with me,” Cullen said. “You have my permission to take the rest of the day off.” 

“Sir?”

When Cullen said nothing Hugh saluted and left. Cullen steeled himself for the task at hand, trying to keep the image of a skinless woman with scorpions in her eyes out of his thoughts.


End file.
